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Originally posted by plawrence:

But let's get our facts straight here:

It was not Castro who threatened the U.S. with nuclear weapons.


I don't believe that there was ever any doubt that it would be the Soviets who would be in control of the missles and determine if and when they would ever be used.

The whole Cuban Missle Crisis was just another move in the cold war chess game between the Soviet Union and the United States, and Castro and Cuba were nothing more than pawns.
Considering, in return for hosting and aiming the nukes, Fidel received economic aid and weapons technology, he plays more than the role of a pawn. If he didn't really want to do such a thing, why didn't he refuse the aid and tell the Soviets he didn't want to play ball?

Granted, yes, they were Soviet missiles. But it's a little like suing Derringer because some guy shot you. The missiles were coming from the country of Cuba. If he wished, Castro could've either refused to place the missiles or deactivated them on his own.

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But I'd rather prefer a left dictator, then a nazi-racist dictator.
Statistics wise, Stalin actually killed more people than Hitler, I believe. This would encompass the mass starvations in Poland, the Ukraine, etc., as well as domestically.

So you would prefer Stalin, who was an equal murderer? Seems rather silly to me.

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The number is arguable. Hitler started a war, so indirectly he caused many more deads.
No, it's not. The numbers are Stalin's from deaths in Poland, Ukraine, and the other areas of East Germany as well as inside the Soviet Union.

And I don't see how anyone who starts are war is "indirectly" causing more "deads," it seems to be pretty cause-and-effect in my view.

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Russia offered many, many more lives than any other country in order to wipe out the fascism and end the war. I'm not deminishing the American input, that started in Normandy, but Russian and American military actions are at least even.
So Stalin gets a free pass, even though he was as brutal, if not more brutal, than Hitler?